Patience and Trust
by Hospitaller
Summary: Ryoko finds the weekend a little too much to handle...


Disclaimer: I own none of the characters, concepts, or themes  
of Tenchi Muyo! Or any of its spinoffs. I am profiting in no way from  
this writing.   
  
  
Ryouko reached deeper into her soul.  
Somewhere, deep inside her, was what she wanted. Buried down   
beneath everything that made her sentient, beneath everything that made  
her civilized, beneath everything that made her even a semi-functional  
member of society, even beneath the instincts that made her a social  
creature, there was something primal she wanted to tap.  
Her eyes narrowed. She'd found it.  
She opened her mouth and screamed. Her arm whip-snapped  
back behind her head in a blur. When it came forward, her hand held a   
bolt of pure plasma.  
Her scream degenerated into a feral snarl. Energy crackled  
and writhed about her arm, the charged particles ionizing beyond the   
point of control or even of physical coherency...  
First the beam, then her fist impacted the sheer rock face. A   
quarter-mile wide swath of stone vaporized. The air about her exploded  
as flash-gas super-expanded. The shockwave whipped her hair about and  
tore at her clothing. The sonic boom of the overpressure could be   
heard in Tokyo.  
Japanese national consciousness cringed as a bright light and   
faster-than-thought mach-wave spread over the land. Hiroshima and   
Nagasaki hadn't been so long ago...  
Ryouko let her breath hiss out between her teeth. The mountain  
was gone. Not rubble, not gravel, not dirt...  
Just gone.  
It wasn't enough.  
It wasn't NEARLY enough.  
She tilted her head back and screamed. Her body shot forward,  
arrowing for the next mountain in the range, plasma already crackling  
about her fist...  
  
It had started a few months ago.  
Tenchi had never been one to choose one girl over the other. In   
the end, his personality makeup wouldn't let him. But as he'd grown  
and matured, his attraction to them had become unbearable.  
He had slept with Aeka.  
And then he'd told Ryouko.  
She'd stared, openmouthed, as he'd confessed the act. About how  
they'd been walking by the shore of the lake, under the moonlight,  
and how one thing had led to another.  
She wanted to be angry. She could see the truth in his eyes. But  
it was just too much. Her emotions were too overloaded, too blasted  
and frazzled to power a reaction. So she'd just stood and listened.  
And then he'd told her he loved her.  
Told her that he knew that she was the strong one. That though  
he knew it would cause her pain, that he had to be honest with someone,  
and that he trusted her, knew she could handle the knowledge even   
better than he.  
That he was in love with them both, and could give neither up.  
That he'd slept with Aeka.  
That he still loved Ryouko.  
That he was afraid that Aeka couldn't handle that idea. That to   
her, his act had consummated, perhaps even consecrated, his   
relationship to the princess, and that to love another would now be   
seen as proof he didn't truly love her.  
That he couldn't sleep with both of them. That he'd feel he'd be  
betraying Aeka's trust.  
But that he still loved Ryouko.  
That he wanted to call her his Beloved.  
That he thought of her first thing in the morning and last thing  
at night.  
That he dreamed of her.  
That she brought light to his world.  
That he loved her with all his heart.  
But that he loved Aeka just as much.  
He'd asked her to understand. Told her that he couldn't give up   
the physical relationship he now had with Aeka. He loved the princess  
too much to deny her.  
But that it didn't mean he didn't love Ryouko too.  
But she couldn't tell.  
That it had to be a secret that he loved her.  
That one day, when he could, he'd tell Aeka. Or if not, then he'd  
have to choose.  
And then, crying, he'd left her.  
And Ryouko had stood silently, still openmouthed, still staring.  
  
She'd agreed.  
She'd justified to herself that she loved Tenchi, and that his   
reasoning was valid. Aeka COULDN'T handle the idea that Tenchi loved  
another, even as he made love to her. And he undoubtedly loved the   
princess. So to argue, to fight, or to tell Aeka, would have hurt   
Tenchi immeasurably.  
And perhaps she'd lose Tenchi altogether in the process.  
So Ryouko kept her peace. Tenchi, to his credit, had been true  
to his word. He stole many private moments with Ryouko, and in those  
moments he was as tender and as loving as she could ever have hoped.  
They'd held each other under moonlit nights, and walked hand in hand,  
staring into each other's eyes. And they'd kissed so deeply and   
powerfully that he'd told her that it was like an act of religion...  
But he never made love to her.  
And he was making love to Aeka.  
Ryouko'd gritted her teeth and born it as best she could. She   
hadn't wanted to broach the issue. She knew Tenchi felt guilty about  
it, that it would pain him if she revealed her own distress. For that  
matter, she was afraid he might think she was interested only in the   
physical, that she couldn't be satisfied with being loved, that she had  
to have sex. So she'd held her tongue. Oh, she'd been subversive...  
she'd done her best on more than one occasion to arouse Tenchi to the  
point where he lost control and pounced upon her. But somehow, he'd  
never quite lost control when she'd been truly desperate, and when she  
wasn't truly desperate Ryouko never had the heart to force him to   
betray himself. Their libidos seemed permanently out of sync. And so  
it had gone on for months.  
Then there had been this weekend.  
Tenchi had left her a note, and she stole into his bedroom on   
Thursday night, as she often did. Usually during such nocturnal  
visits they kissed and played and groped in a parody of near-sex  
that served to quell their lust just enough to make life liveable.  
But Thursday night he hadn't been playful at all.  
"Ryouko," he'd told her, "tomorrow night Aeka and I are leaving  
for Dewa province for the weekend. She wants to 'get away' for a few  
days."  
The demon had nodded and kept her peace. She didn't like it. At  
all. In fact, the idea of them alone for a weekend made her physically  
ill. But she didn't know what was right here. She'd agreed to this  
arrangement, after all. Did she have any right to be jealous? If she  
really loved him truly, would she be so possessive? Doubts assailed  
her. So she said nothing. Tenchi had left her bedroom, clearly upset,  
clearly knowing that what he was doing was hurting Ryouko. But the   
next day he'd left with Aeka all the same.  
He even called her with his cellular phone during the drive to   
Dewa while Aeka slept in the passenger seat, to whisper to Ryouko that  
he loved her.  
Once he hung up, Ryouko cried until her eyes were sore.  
He loved her... but he was still going to Dewa with Aeka. Where  
they'd make love.  
Something he'd denied her. And would continue to deny her for the  
foreseeable future.  
Maybe forever.  
The next morning, she awoke in a murderous rage. Her every   
thought was of Tenchi and Aeka, conjoined in the act of love in some  
luxurious room in some mountain hideaway in Dewa. She tried to banish  
the thoughts by thinking of the happy times she'd spent with Tenchi,  
but they were swept away by the avalanche of her fearful imaginings.  
She'd tried to calm herself by looking at pictures of Tenchi, but so   
many of them had been taken by Aeka...  
It was just too much.  
She couldn't confront Tenchi, demand that he make a choice. She   
just couldn't ask him to give up someone he loved.  
No matter how much it hurt her that he was With another.  
And anyhow, He'd been with Aeka on a much more intimate level now,  
and been with her for a pretty long period. Ryouko had come to feel  
as though she were a mistress, and Aeka was his wife. Aeka was well  
established, a regular partner and, in the eyes of the world, Tenchi's  
"official" girlfriend. If she demanded he choose, wouldn't it be   
logical for him to choose Aeka?  
Even worse would be if he cast her off "for her own good." If she  
let him know she was hurting, he might leave her just to spare her   
further pain. He was like that.  
She had neither the callousness nor the bravery to demand   
anything.  
But she had to do something.  
And so she'd flown to Shinano province, and found herself some   
mountains...  
  
The second precipice of the day vaporized in an outpouring  
of matter, energy, and plasma. Ryouko growled menacingly at the   
crater.  
"TENCHI, I HATE YOU!!!!" she screamed. She rapid-fired several  
blasts of ball lightning into the still-smoking ground. Smoke   
enveloped her. Gravel stung her as it blasted past her, propelled  
by her own attack.  
She could have stopped the debris with her chi-shield, but the   
pain felt too comforting.  
A small piece of her worried. A small piece of her thought that  
her relationship with Tenchi was being asphyxiated, slowly strangled  
by the resentment she was now giving voice to. That even if one day he  
chose her, that she'd never feel right about him. The same piece of   
her wondered at the fact that she didn't resent Aeka. Then again,  
how could she? Aeka didn't know...  
She began to sob.  
A JSDF F-16 chose that moment to streak by her, its astonished  
pilot frantically radioing his base that there was a lone woman   
FLOATING in space above the Shinano hills, and that she was the cause  
of the destruction. Before his bewildered superiors could ask him to   
confirm his report, Ryouko had teleported away.  
She'd not cry where any could see her.  
  
It was funny. The cave had so long been the place of her worst  
fears.  
But now she could think of no other place where she could go and  
be truly alone. Her tears had long since ceased, having run in small  
rivulets down her face and into the icy cold depths of the central  
pool. Now she sat on the cold stone floor, hugging her knees to her   
chest and rocking back and forth, her eyes tightly shut.  
She whispered, "I love you. I hate you. I love you. I hate you"  
over and over again.  
When Tenchi returned from the weekend, she'd meet him with a   
smile. She'd deny all knowledge of the incredible paroxysm of violence  
that had rocked Shinano.  
But until then, she was giving voice to her pain. 


End file.
